


Whatever-We-Are

by gintokiu



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Confessions, Cussing, Feelings, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, M/M, Volleyball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:49:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gintokiu/pseuds/gintokiu
Summary: Gintoki and Hijikata are about to start their last year of university as collegiate athletes, but a few new questions between them arise.
Relationships: Hijikata Toshirou/Sakata Gintoki
Comments: 11
Kudos: 55
Collections: Gintoki's Birthday Bash 2020





	Whatever-We-Are

**Author's Note:**

> Gah, it's been a long time coming for this one! (reference tweet: https://twitter.com/gintokiuu/status/1286068214800293895?s=21) It's my first time writing for an actual event and I wanted to make it mean something special. For me, volleyball and Gintama have been there for me through some of the worst times in my life, so I combined them. Might not mean much to anyone but me, but writing fanfiction has never been anything other than me being selfish and indulging so I guess nothing really changed LOL. 
> 
> Big, big thank you to the mods luckystars (@luckystars1015 on twitter as well as ao3), writing_in_the_dark, and Strawberry_Justaway who organized this whole thing from start to finish, y'all are amazing!! Be sure to support their works as well ;^) 
> 
> And a !!! huge !!! thank you to @gintoki_hole who did the corresponding fanart for this story. It was all my pleasure to work with you, your patience and talent are unrivaled. Keep up the good work! <3 Give him and his work the love they deserve on twitter!! https://twitter.com/gintoki_hole/status/1313796211074236418
> 
> And for my readers who might not be as familiar with the terminology of the game, here's a small run-down of the only words my non-volleyballer friends told me to define:  
> \- Endline and Sideline: the lines that make up the boundaries of the court.  
> \- Three-meter line: Used metric system because Japan, but the three-meter line is also the ten-foot line for my American friends. It's where the front row and the back row of the court are separated.  
> \- Shank: a pass that is too bad to be kept in-play.  
> \- Approach: the footwork to go into a spike/hit. 
> 
> Ah, okay, I'm done rambling. As usual, enjoy!!

His body effortlessly carries him back, one foot crossing in front of the other, his arms already in swing to propel him upwards into the air― muscle memory of motions he’d done over and over again thousands of times. The ball comes quick and it’s buried even quicker cleanly down the left sideline, Hijikata landing, Gintoki’s hand already held out for him to slap in silent encouragement. 

“Oi, Patsuan. What happened, huh?” Gintoki chides, sticking his nose through a square of the net. 

“He’s fast! And I’m not used to receiving those hits yet!” The boy replies defensively back, fists curling into balls as his face tinted softly with a flush. “You told us to work on defense, but I think you just want a chance to set!” 

Gintoki’s eyebrows raise at the jab, his lips pouting in a way that Hijikata can’t help but frown at. _“Uh-uhh._ Gin-san doesn’t need to work on setting, he’s already giving everybody perfect sets, right, Hijikata-kun?” 

“It was too low.” 

The perm’s eyes narrow, his pout furthering as he pulled back away from the netting. “Now you’re just lying.” He mumbles, Hijikata shrugging his shoulders in reply.

“Can’t we just do pairs? I get Gin-chan and Shinpachi gets Oogushi-kun and _we just play?”_ Kagura whines out, mindlessly fixing a kneepad, sweat glistening across her forehead in the heat of the gym. Shinpachi nods vigorously in backing of Kagura’s idea, hands resting on his hips in a way that reminds Hijikata way too much of the boy’s sister.

“Sheesh, are you two this defiant with your other coaches, or is it just me?” Gintoki grumbles, crossing under the net and motioning for Shinpachi to go to the other side with the point of his finger. “Alright, pairs it is. Oogushi’s team can serve since they want to be babies about good, _hard_ training.” 

Shinpachi barks something back but Hijikata’s not listening to a word of it, well aware of what light-hearted bickering would get you with Gintoki and not only him, but his smaller vermillion-haired counterpart as well. The two were masters at turning conversations against you, Hijikata had learned that extremely quick. 

He walks back to behind the endline, Gintoki already tossing him a ball underneath the net from the ball cart. The perm rolls the cart further out of the way, walking back to his spot on the court to get ready for Hijikata’s serve. Once the two on the other side looked ready enough, he tosses it up, giving himself enough height to get a good enough approach, the ball quickly spinning its way in between Kagura and Gintoki. The perm naturally gets there before her, Gintoki already used to how his serves glide from the many practice sessions they’ve had together. 

But even still, the ball flies off his arms and hits the gym’s brick wall, the pass shanked above the banners hanging several meters up. 

“Oooh, great serve, Oogushi-kun!” Kagura calls out, jumping up and catching the ball as it bounced back into their court. 

“Stop calling me that!” He hisses, hands held out for her to give him the ball. Gintoki is wordless on the other side, already back in his spot from where he’d had to move for Hijikata’s serve. _A sore loser,_ Hijikata thinks, but doesn’t dare say aloud.

Once ready, the ball is tossed in the air with practiced familiarity, coming off his hand and dropping onto the other side of the court with just as much speed and power as his last. This time, the perm is there, the volleyball bouncing off his arms and soaring up into the air, a near-perfect pass for Kagura to get there in time to set back up for him. Gintoki is already out and ready for his approach to swing by the time that the ball actually gets into Kagura’s hands, the set coming out fumbly but to where Gintoki needed it nonetheless. 

Hijikata is at the net, jumping just a second after the perm, pressing his arms over for a block so hopefully, Shinpachi at least would get some practice reading in defense. The ball grazes his pinky finger, but only because Gintoki, being the sore loser he is, buries it on the three-meter line. 

“Eye for an eye.” Gintoki remarks across the net, smirk cheeky and thin on his dumb face.

“God, you’re way too competitive!” Hijikata can’t help but bark back, shoving the ball in Gintoki’s hands as the other turns to remind Kagura to do her footwork into the set so she wouldn’t get called by a referee. Likewise, Hijikata turns around with a huff and explains to Shinpachi that he was too far into the court for the angle of where Gintoki was facing. He’s not the best at explaining things because his body just _moves,_ but the perm had been dragging him here recently with the intent of getting him to help coach the kids, so he would do as much as he could. 

It’s only a moment later Gintoki is back at the endline to serve, not bothering to do his usual jump-float, instead, staying standing and giving Shinpachi a decent serve that dropped a couple of meters before him. Shinpachi is there with the help of a dive into the ground, the ball flying backwards into their side of the court. Hijikata’s not going to attempt to place a set from the back of the court so he sends it over to Gintoki’s side with a snap of his wrist, running back to his spot to get ready for the next ball over. He can see Shinpachi is up and ready too from the corner of his eye, Kagura sending the ball over from their side in a lob of a spike because it, once more, came off of her hand wrong. 

She’s young and just getting started in the sport and even with all the natural athleticism she has, she still has to work out the timing of everything before the fundamentals begin to click into place. Gintoki’s done a good job so far in getting her established, he thinks, his hands flying up into the air to block the ball that Gintoki was about to hit. 

But instead he doesn’t hit it, the ball beginning to fall from the perm’s fingertips and behind Hijikata’s body. _“Read my hand, Patsuan!”_ Gintoki calls out as he’s still in the air, the ball just barely managing to come off Shinpachi’s outstretched arm, flying quickly off the court to Hijikata’s right. Hijikata takes off for it in a sprint as soon as his feet touch back down on the floor, jumping forward in a dive, managing to get the ball up and back into play. 

There’s a curse as he hits the floor, momentum carrying him into the second ball cart which thankfully doesn’t topple over and send volleyballs rolling everywhere. Shinpachi is there in a second, sending it back over towards Kagura’s side of the court. 

She gets it up with one of the better passes Hijikata has seen her make that night, only for Gintoki to set her up, her hit not ever crossing over the top as it fell back down onto their side of the court. 

Gintoki chuckles at the exasperated growl she makes, already talking to her about what she could fix. Shinpachi’s over by Hijikata in a second, a gleam in his eyes as he takes the double high-fives Hijikata is offering him. 

“Hijikata-san, that was an amazing dig!” He says, smiling bright. “Where did you learn to do that?!”

“You just, uh… go for it?” He pauses, “What’s that saying? Something ‘bout how you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take..? Something like that. It’s good for athletes to remember, especially liberos like yourself.” He says and god, he’s so bad at this whole coaching thing. “You just… extend your body out real far, you’ll know you’ve done it right when you feel it, I promise.” 

That has to have been the worst explanation he’s ever given but Shinpachi still replies with an enthusiastic _“yes, sir!”,_ which Hijikata thinks is more enamourment than it is actual understanding.

They spend a good forty-five more minutes in the gym going back and forth between coaching skills and light-hearted playing, Gintoki teasing Hijikata about all sorts of things from the other side of the net. Not that it bothers him, they’re used to bickering back and forth both on and off the court. 

The last ball comes when Shinpachi wipes the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, announcing that it would probably be best for him and Kagura to start heading home, not wanting to make his sister wait for dinner when she came back from work. The four of them begin to take down the net, Gintoki working on the antennas as Shinpachi helped her get the ties on the top that she couldn’t reach. 

Hijikata’s fingers are working on his own ties, his mind thinking more about how good his body feels after practice than about the motions of dismantling the net. He’s going to miss this after he graduates, the way that his lungs feel so open, the warmth in his hand from the impact of the ball. There’s truly nothing that can replace the feeling of a good practice. 

Once his side is on the floor and ready to be put up, he grabs the pole, taking it into the storage room. It’s dark, Hijikata not caring to find the light switch as he leans the metal equipment up against the wall. Then, out of nowhere, a hand is brushing the back of his bicep, Hijikata nearly jumping out of his skin, dropping the pole the rest of the way to the bricks. 

“Fuck! What’re you doing?!” He hissed, turning around to meet the perm’s infuriatingly dull face. 

“I’m… putting up the antennas? What’re you zoning out for that you didn’t hear my squeaky-ass shoes coming in?” Gintoki returns back, grabbing Hijikata’s arm and using it to stabilize himself as he reaches out over the other sports equipment piled around the floor to place them back by the wall. 

“None of your business either way.” He says, Shinpachi coming into the storage room with the second pole. 

They both lean against the side to allow the teen through, “I guess you’re right.” Gintoki returns, shimmying the rest of the way out of the closet when the space allowed. Hijikata’s but a step after him, Gintoki plopping onto the floor by his bag to take off his shoes and knee pads. 

Hijikata slides off his own shoes, placing them into his duffle bag while Kagura runs into the closet with the net held tightly in her hands, the metal pieces of it jiggling loudly across the floor behind her. Gintoki calls out for her not to scuff up the court, but by that time, she’s already slung the net into the corner of the storage room for some other poor soul to untangle. 

It doesn’t take the kids long to get their stuff off and soon they’re heading out of the gym, waving goodbye to the nice old janitor who always works the evening shift and occasionally gives Kagura and Shinpachi money to buy a snack at the vending machine. The kids are talkative the whole way to Shinpachi’s sister’s, the two going on and on about how excited they were to come to Gintoki’s and Hijikata’s games after school. Kagura tells them about the girl that she’s made friends with, Soyo-chan, saying that she’s trying to get her to try out for the school’s volleyball team this year. 

“Yeah, I told her that she should come to one of your pre-season games with me! I said that I knew you guys but I don’t know if she believed me… but I’m sure she believed it when I said I was gonna be just as good as you guys― no, _better!”_ She says with a flex of her free arm, a face reminiscent of Gintoki’s plastered across her own, smug and undoubtedly happy. 

He looks over to Gintoki for just a second, a flash of something soft in his eyes that Hijikata is definitely not used to seeing gone the very second he reaches down to pull at her ear. 

“You’re a hundred years too young to pass up Gin-san, but-” He leans over, stopping her briefly to whisper in her ear. 

_“I’m already better than Toshi!”_ She exclaims gleefully with a hop and two fists raised triumphantly in the air.

“Who is _Toshi?!”_ He barks and pulls down harshly on Gintoki’s own ear, the perm squealing and swatting at his hand.

“Toshi-chan so meeaannn~ _ah!”_ Hijikata delivers the hardest flick he can to the perm’s temple, Gintoki retreating to take cover behind Shinpachi on the other side of the sidewalk, rubbing where he’d been hit with the palm of his hand. 

“Serves you right.” He states, Gintoki mumbling something under his breath that Hijikata doesn’t care to figure out, the group rounding the final corner where Shinpachi’s house sat. Otae is out by the mailbox, her purse slung over her shoulder as she turns to meet them. 

“Ah, Shin-chan, Kagura-chan, back so early! I thought I had heard familiar voices...” She says, Shinpachi unlocking the gate for her. 

“It was us!” Kagura says with a skip to the door before turning back and waving goodbye to Gintoki and Hijikata. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Gin-chan!” Shinpachi nods his head at her statement with a wave as well, the perm giving them a parting smile as they disappeared into the house. 

“Yes, we’ll see you tomorrow indeed. You better not be asleep still when we get to the apartment, ten o’clock sharp, you hear?” 

“Nag nag nag, I heard you the other fifteen times you said it yesterday.” Gintoki says, barely dodging the junk-mail-attack that she swung towards him. 

“Keep him in line, Hijikata-san. We all know he needs it.” She says with a devilish smile so forced it made her eyes look like little upside-down crescent moons, the gate closing softly behind her. 

Gintoki sighs, mindlessly kicking a pebble with his scuffed up shoes into the road. “What now?”

“Whatever,” Hijikata replies. “I could go for a drink.”

“Are you talking boba or beer? Because I am broke and only have one of those at the apartment.”

“I was talking beer.”

“Well you’re in luck, Hiji-chan.”

Hijikata’s lips turn up in disgust. “What is with all these awful nicknames today, huh?” 

Gintoki doesn’t give him a direct answer, only a side smile and a shrug of his shoulders. They don’t have to walk for long, Gintoki’s summertime apartment only a block away from where Otae and the kids lived. 

Their shoes are slipped off by the door, Gintoki throwing his things haphazardly down by the entrance and plopping face-first onto the couch, the rest of his body limp as it hung off the side of the piece of furniture.

“Fridge?” Hijikata asks as he sets down his duffel bag next to Gintoki’s, the perm giving him what he thinks is a grumble of confirmation, so he makes his way into the kitchen, where mostly everything is boxed up on the counters, ready to be moved the next day. The fridge is even more starkly bare than usual, with only the last essential perishable items lining the front of the shelf. And the beer, of course, because it was Gintoki, after all. 

“You want some or not?” Hijikata calls out to him, Gintoki’s voice still stifled in the cushions when he mumbles back what sounds to be _nah, water._ He gets the bottle the perm had been drinking out of before from his volleyball bag by the door, kneeing Gintoki on the butt before taking a seat on the couch next to him. “Look at you, being healthy for once.” He says, opening his can and watching Gintoki drag himself up to sit almost properly on the sofa. 

“What’re you talking about? ‘M heathwy all tha time.” Gintoki says, the last line obscured by his lips to the bottle, “Besides, Toshi-chan helps me stay in shape with lots of _physical activity.”_

Hijikata kicks him in the chest before the other has time to notice the tint on his cheeks. “Fuck you.” 

_“Anytime,”_ comes the sleek reply before the perm ultimately gets kicked again. There’s a foot that tries to make its way to hit Hijikata but it’s caught by the ankle and held away, Gintoki’s other leg pinned down by Hijikata’s foot. 

“Take up the whole couch, will ya? And your feet stink, like always.” 

“At least my knee pads don’t reek so bad they almost made Coach throw up on the court!” 

“That was Kondo and you know it!” 

“Well you were standing next to each other, I’m sure you both ganging up on him to end practice early!”

“That was right before the All Japan tournament, why in the hell would I gang up on him to end practice early before something so important?!” He says with a twist to Gintoki’s ankle, the other yelping in return.

“That’s my hurt ankle and you know it, you sadistic bastard!” 

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh!”_

He can feel the tape underneath Gintoki’s sock now, not quite sure how he missed it before. It’s a marvel how the perm was even able to move on the court with his ankle as swollen as it was beneath Hijikata’s fingers. 

“You dumb shit, why’re you even playing on this? You’re gonna hurt yourself more!” When he gets just a shrug of two lazy shoulders in reply, Hijikata shoves his beer into Gintoki’s free hand, pulling down his crew-cut sock and searching for where the end of the tape was. Hell, the thing is not even wrapped right, no wonder Hijikata was able to twist it.

He pulls at the end of the wrap, careful not to jostle the injury around too much. “Sit and stay.” He states, Gintoki calling out a _“yes, mother”_ behind him as he got the tape he kept in his bag out, telling the perm to turn around and put him foot down so Hijikata could reach it. 

“You’re not gonna redo this now, are you?”

“I was.”

“Augh, chill out and sit down for a second, let it breathe.” Gintoki droned, “You really are acting like my mom, you know.” Hijikata scrunches his nose at him and frowns, watching the other take a swing from his can. Gintoki hands it back with an exaggerated _“ahh”_ like the ones they make on soda commercials, not giving Hijikata time to complain before he asks, “Where are you going after this?”

“After what? Tonight?” 

“No, stupid,” Gintoki says, downing the rest of his water. “After this season. After we graduate and become adults for real, Hijikata-kun. What are you doing with your _life?”_

“I, uh…” He pauses, not sure where all of this was coming from. “You know I plan to go into the police academy. It’s been a thing for me since I was young.” 

Annoyingly, Gintoki doesn’t give him anything other than a heart-assed hum in reply. Hijikata, still on the floor with Gintoki’s foot in his lap, sets his leg to the side and sits back up on the edge of the sofa. 

On the coffee table, there's a stack of framed pictures the perm has yet to box up, the one on the top being a photo of everyone on their team last season, celebrating after a point, their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders. He and Gintoki are in the middle of the frame, their backs to the camera. He’s seen this photo countless of times, with it usually hanging in the living room but everytime he sees it he can’t help but think that Gintoki looks much better in the red of their jerseys than he does― but maybe he’s just still not used to seeing his hair short in photos, even if it’s been well over a year.

The next photo under it is one he doesn’t recognize, never seeing it on any of the apartment’s walls before now. He sets the team photo down to the side of the pile and decides it’s okay this once to be nosy; after all, Gintoki was always getting into his stuff without his permission just to strike a nerve.

Gintoki he recognizes immediately, it’s hard not to with that hair, even if the perm was shrunk down several sizes in the photo. Katsura comes next, still retaining his baby cheeks to this day. There’s another kid with them, looking away from the photo with a pout, along with an older man probably not much over thirty, long tan hair falling around his shoulders. 

The man has a hand on the heads of Gintoki and the kid Hijikata doesn’t recognize and all three of the children are wearing big, clunky knee pads. Katsura’s holding the volleyball out in front of him like he’s won a prize, grin wide across his face. They’re all smiling, Gintoki and the man and even the kid that seems too embarrassed to look into the camera, the date, _Summer, ‘06,_ written down at the bottom in better handwriting than Gintoki or even himself could ever begin to manage. 

“Who’s this?” Hijikata decides to ask, not entirely even sure he’d get an answer at all. 

“Shouyo-sensei.” Gintoki returns back simply and even though Hijikata’s not turned in his direction, he knows that the perm is watching him look at the photo, has been since he picked it up.

“Ah, I see.” He says, placing down the picture frame on top of the other he’d already looked at. “You don’t talk about him often.” 

Hijikata hears the wet of his lips in the silence as they open to speak, the soft intake of breath in the stillness of the air. It’s after a moment of silence and Hijikata picking up the next photo that he finally says, “They…” he pauses, his voice hushed behind Hijikata’s back, “they said it was cancer.” 

His hand freezes in place, clasp around the wood of the frame, fingerprints left on the shiny varnish as he turns to meet Gintoki’s eyes. He’s got his water bottle in his lap, tucked against his chest the way a child would hold it, face uncharacteristically soft. 

Gintoki never talked about his past with anyone, in fact, went out of his way to avoid it as much as possible. While it had been a running joke on the team at one point about how secretive he was, everyone had dropped it almost immediately when Hijikata had... _confronted_ them about it one afternoon after practice. Gintoki thanked him for it after and since then, nothing between the two of them had been said about it until now. 

Hijikata opens his mouth to say something unknown to himself but the moment is gone just as quickly as it came, Gintoki beating him to it. 

“You’re good enough to go pro.” 

_“Pr― Pfft,”_ The word comes across so foreign on Hijikata’s tongue he can’t even get it out without laughing. “Me-? Pro?”

“I said what I said.” Gintoki states, defiant, staring back at him through the sunset’s light pouring in from the window. 

“You’re full of it. Besides, it hadn’t even crossed my mind before you said it to me, so no way.” 

“I know it hasn’t crossed your mind, which is exactly why I’m telling you that you should.”

“Where would I go? Russia? France? _America?”_

“France would be nice.”

“That was a joke, Gintoki.”

“You could stay here in Japan if you wanted.” Hijikata gives him a _Look_ and Gintoki just shrugs, popping the cap of his bottle open to take another sip before saying, “We need a middle blocker.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they do after Ishida left― wait, _“we?”_ Who is this _“we?!””_ Gintoki, annoyingly, shrugs again, eyes looking out of the window. Hijikata smacks his ankle to get his attention, the perm not getting a chance to complain before he’s talking. “Are you serious right now? Are you actually playing for Japan?”

“I’ve been serious this whole time, Oogushi-kun. You’re the one who’s in a joking mood.” He says with that stupid dead-fish look in his eyes, continuing, “It’s not put on paper yet, but my pay is already being negotiated.” Hijikata slumps back against the couch cushions in a daze, Gintoki once more taking the opportunity to prop his ankle up on Hijikata’s thigh. “I’ve already brought up your name in conversation, they want to talk. I told them you were a hardass but if I was around, you’d behave well enough.”

“You did _not!”_ Hijikata bites and Gintoki finally cracks a smile, waving a dismissive hand at him. 

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Either way, I’ll text you the coach’s personal number later when I feel like finding my phone.”

Hijikata sighs in frustration or exhaustion or both, picking back up his forgotten beer and downing the rest of it in a couple gulps. “I still haven’t said yes, or even that I wanted to. Besides, why? What’s driving you to do this?” 

_“”Why?”_ What do you mean why? Does there have to be any other reason than I enjoy playing on the same court as you?” Gintoki says with a frown, his eyebrows pinched inward, the bow of his lips twitching once in something Hijikata can’t decipher as anything other than annoyance. 

Annoyance. What did Gintoki have to get annoyed with him for? Why was he the one getting defiant? It was Hijikata’s future he was trying to persuade, and _hell!―_ Hijikata was even allowing him, to a certain degree! It just didn’t make sense. 

Not only that, for as long as he could remember he’d wanted to become an officer, and everything just seemed to line up when Kondo had graduated and gone into the force as well. And then there was his brother, who would take him out to eat with his co-workers every other week, making Hijikata already well acquainted with the men and women at the station. Tamegoro had always made sure he did everything he could to support Hijikata’s aspirations throughout not only his college career, but his middle school and high school years as well, taking him for rides in the cruiser, allowing him to pepper spray the officer’s in pepper spray training. 

For years, this had been his reality― one that he was excited for, even; one that Gintoki knew good and well about, they've had conversation after conversation over it! Now, here the bastard was, making him second-guess everything that he’d been working towards for over the past few years. 

Could he go pro? It was less of a question of _‘if’_ and more of a question of _‘should’._ He had the skills, and even if he was lacking on one end, he still had a whole season to improve whatever he needed to. But what would his brother think? Would he even want to devote a large chunk of his foreseeable future to the court? 

“It’s not something you have to figure out now.” Gintoki states in a matter-of-fact tone, breaking Hijikata away from his thoughts and back into reality. “Because I know good and well you were trying to.”

“I was not.” He says, still a little agitated, lifting Gintoki’s foot from his lap and placing it gently back on the couch cushion. Eyes follow him as he walks over to his bag, rummaging through it to find the roll of tape and pre-wrap to correctly wrap the idiot’s ankle. He returns back to where Gintoki was sitting, motioning for him to sit correctly on the sofa. Hijikata plops down on the carpet before him, placing Gintoki’s foot on his knee as he got to work.

“It still doesn’t add up.” He says somewhere in between tearing the last of the pre-wrap and undoing the athletic tape. “I don’t understand why you’d be so keen on getting me to keep playing.”

He doesn’t see the look on Gintoki’s face but he can clearly hear the uncertainty in his voice. “Because.”

“That’s not much of an answer. What are you not telling me?” It’s a bit of a long-shot but he still asks the question nonetheless, growing a little too tired of Gintoki’s vague answers to care. 

“I’ve told you everything I meant, Hijikata. I want to keep playing alongside you, I’d like it if we could yell at each other in-game to line up the block better or to hit down the line, but if we end up on different sides of the court I’d be just as content, if that’s what it’s meant to be.” That sincerity is back in his voice again and Hijikata really can’t wrap his head around what to make of it, never knowing how to fully read him when he got like _this._

Uncertain of what else to say, Hijikata makes a joke about how if he didn’t know any better, that would sound awfully like some weird love story on Netflix, lightly chuckling at the prospect. Gintoki’s leg stiffens just the tiniest bit in his hold, just enough for Hijikata to feel, looking up to see if he’d accidentally moved the injury in a wrong way. 

Gintoki meets his eyes immediately, face emotionless as he whispers, “It could be real, you know―” 

The air of the apartment suddenly thickens like a weight on his lungs, Hijikata torn in between asking what he meant or just outright making the assumption his mind (and heart) is telling him (praying) is right. Neither of which he particularly wants to do, so he merely lowers his head back down to what he was working on before, lips still slightly agape in surprise, eyes glued on his task and never straying anywhere that was even the slightest bit close to Gintoki’s face. 

Leaving them both with an awkward silence, it’s only after he’s placed the final piece of tape down the side of Gintoki’s ankle does he get the courage to figure out just what the fuck was going on between them. He opens his mouth once, not sure how to word, quite literally, anything right now with how flustered his brain was. 

“What…” He finally manages, thinking that’s as good of a starting point as he was going to get. “What are we?” 

“I'll never force anything on you, you know that.” Gintoki says, tufts of perm falling in his face as he stares down at where Hijikata is sitting. “I’ve liked you since you got drunk at Zenzou’s party, when you almost broke my arm because you decided to jump into the pool from the roof and missed the pool.” 

“That was almost a year and a half ago, way before we ever hooked up… Why did you never say something to me?” He sets down Gintoki’s foot back gently onto the ground, pulling himself up to sit on the coffee table across from him. 

Gintoki shrugs, fingers still wound tightly around his bottle, “Never felt like I could.”

“Where… does that put us?” 

“I should be the one asking you that.” 

He feels his mouth go dry almost immediately, making it that much harder to swallow. Sunlight illuminates half of Gintoki’s face from the window, making his eyes seem that much more overbearing as they stared unmoving into Hijikata’s own. His heart is racing wildly inside his chest, unsure and confused and drowning in a whole bunch of feelings that Hijikata isn’t quite sure leans more towards affection or anger. 

_Where does that put us?_

Where _did_ he want them? Hijikata for sure didn’t fucking know!― and he definitely wasn’t drunk enough to try to piece together all the thoughts he’s had since they had begun hooking up. 

Pushing himself off the couch with a move mostly consumed by some emotion inherently irate in origin, Hijikata gets up, walking past the other with a huff. Gintoki reaches out to grab him, fingertips only lightly grazing the side of his hand, a feeble whisper of his name over his shoulder. Hijikata doesn’t look back, keeps walking toward his destination: the fridge, and, more importantly, the Asahi waiting for him inside said fridge. 

The cold is welcome against his reddened face and, once more, he downs the thing as fast as he can, throwing it somewhere off to the side of the kitchen, already decided in what he was going to do. Throwing all caution and rational thinking to the wind, he walks back, ignoring the way that Gintoki’s eyes search his face for answers. Instead, he grabs Gintoki’s loose sock to put it back on his foot. It’s a rough motion, but not enough to cause any sort of discomfort that the idiot couldn’t handle. 

“What are _yo―”_ The perm begins but never gets to finish because as soon as the sock is over the tape, Hijikata is climbing in his lap, lips crashing against the other’s, pulling Gintoki’s head down slightly by the tufts of his hair for a better angle. 

It takes a moment for Gintoki to catch up with the change of the situation, the pout in his face leaving to give focus to the kiss, the tension in his body from Hijikata’s lack of an answer slowly easing into something a little more soft, a little more him. It wasn’t like Gintoki to be worried and although he had given the perm more than enough reasons to be, it didn’t fit him. No matter the circumstance, Gintoki always laughed in the face of uncertainty, smiled during adversity. What made Hijikata any different? Just because they’d fucked? Just because he had feelings? _Who gives a shit!_

“You piss me off.” He growls with a bite at Gintoki’s bottom lip, the perm looking up at him with a mix of confusion and tenderness, the hand on Hijikata’s back unclenching its grip in Hijikata’s shirt, hesitant. Hijikata grabs that now-free wrist, putting it back on his skin, both of his hands coming up to squish Gintoki’s cheeks together, his slightly swollen and kiss-wet lips the shape of a fish’s. 

“You piss me off, but don’t you dare look at me like you’re afraid I’m going to leave you.” He states, the corner of his mouth curving upwards into a smile. “You don’t get to decide my answer to things before I tell you.” 

For a second, he thought that he had gone too far, the perm staring back at him blankly for a few heartbeats too long, a worry beginning to flare up in the pit of his stomach. Then, the muscles underneath his palms move, Gintoki’s lips parting in a giggle, that hand Hijikata had placed beginning to move from where it had been frozen on his skin. It falls down, palm cupping the curve of his hip, thumb rubbing small circles where it rested. 

“You’re terrifying, you know that?” Gintoki comments with a wide grin, the nervous wave that had begun to creep its way into the pit of his belly subsiding with a wave of relief. 

Hijikata laughs with a snarky reply, “It's what you get for not telling me sooner, idiot.” 

_“I―!_ Really?!” He huffs, pulling Hijikata closer towards himself as he spoke. “I mean, look how you reacted! You totally went about it all wrong! Most people don’t aggressively put on their… _whatever-we-are_ ’s sock in order to tell them that your feelings are mutual, Hijikata!”

All he replies with is a shrug of his shoulders, the view of Gintoki’s face half-shrouded in the warm orange glow of the sunset interrupting his previous thoughts. The perm licks his lips once, an unconscious movement that only Hijikata notices, the other’s eyes still following around his own, the alcohol beginning to slightly warm his senses.

“Are you sure about this?” Gintoki asks in a low murmur, too faint for Hijikata’s liking. 

“Have I not made it clear?” He returns, and, after a moment, Gintoki finally seems to agree with everything now, his lips pressing into a thin line. Hijikata leans over and kisses him once softly, the perm’s hands slipping by the elastic of his shorts to rest upon the muscles of his ass. 

“We probably shouldn’t be _whatever-we-are_ during the season. Don’t you think that could be a little difficult to manage?” Gintoki whispers, the one-worded question _“unfair?”_ left unsaid. He returns the last kiss with another, Hijikata’s hands making their way underneath the bottom of his shirt, fingertips gliding softly over the other’s stomach. 

“I think we both will know when to prioritize the sport and when to prioritize _whatever-we-are.”_ He says, pausing, “Besides, we were doing this last year as well, we managed then, didn’t we?” 

Gintoki hums in agreeance, placing delicate kisses along his jawline, Hijikata’s unoccupied hand coming up to tangle in the mess of perm. He pulls his head downward, connecting their lips, the last bit of orange-y sun nestled in the corner of the room slowly but surely beginning to engulf them in the darkness. 

His hips are drawn forward as far as they will go, chest pressed up against Gintoki’s own, his quickly hardening member eager for the pressure the position provided. A soft sound escapes from his lips and he feels Gintoki smile in the kiss, his heart warm from a combination of Asahi and affection. However, it's not long before he begins to get impatient, which usually happened when he’s had a few drinks. Not that he was a _light-weight_ light-weight, but chugging two in a row definitely didn’t do anything to help with it.

Of course, Gintoki knows that, senses it almost immediately because he’s always been good at reading what Hijikata wants when he wants it, which is both a blessing and a curse in itself. Thankfully, Gintoki doesn’t seem to be in a teasing mood and soon enough, he’s tugging at the front of Hijikata’s shorts as best he can in the current position, littering Hijikata’s neck with kisses while every now and then gently catching Hijikata’s skin beneath his teeth.

It’s almost unbearably gentle, unbearingly soft. They’re both the type to want to bruise from the strain of fingers pressing down on hips, both the type that prefer it rough and raw before slow and tender, to bleed from the impact of teeth busting lips on accident. This is out of the ordinary. Not unwelcome, but just out of the ordinary.

“Turn around,” he hears Gintoki whisper, “and shorts off.” 

“Turn around-?”

“Trust me.” Gintoki reassures, looking at Hijikata with a gaze darkened with need, the wetness on his lips shining under the last ebbings of light. 

Hijikata does as he is told to do, shedding his bottom half of clothing and sitting backwards on Gintoki’s lap. He can feel the perm’s own arousal against his ass, Gintoki’s hand running up his back, lifting his shirt as he pressed a quick kiss against his spine. The fluff of his hair tickles the back of Hijikata’s neck like it always does, a small tremble running to his fingertips in response. Downwards, a hand roams across the inner side of his thigh, the touch feather-light as his nails dragged over Hijikata’s skin. The back of his shoulder is, _in no way at all,_ lightly bit between teeth as that hand wraps simultaneously around the tip of his cock and presses, Hijikata crying out at the sudden shift of pace. 

Gintoki only chuckles at the response, bringing his thumb up to suck the pre-come from it with a very audible _pop._ He kisses at the bite mark gently, three of his fingers coming up to pull Hijikata’s bottom lip downwards, Gintoki whispering for him to open up.

Obedient, Hijikata does once more as he is told, nails immediately digging into the top of his tongue. He closes his mouth around them, biting down in retaliation from the little stunt earlier.  
The perm kisses another spot into his skin just below the curve of his neck, easing away from the crescent-shaped marks now pressed into his tongue. Hijikata gets the idea and sucks on them until they’re slick, his partner humming behind him in satisfaction. 

The same hand wraps around his length once more and Hijikata can already begin to feel the prickle of sweat that erupts across his skin at the touch, Gintoki’s sweatpants not helping to counter the building heat between them. His cock is already red and aching from the rough treatment before, Hijikata not able to help the whimper that falls from his lips when that hand begins to stroke him much too slowly for his liking.

Not that Gintoki would even consider speeding up if he asked, the bastard was well known for his sadistic tendencies, something that Hijikata didn’t believe until he had witnessed it first hand. He hardly complained about it, however, in the end he was always left satisfied, always left aching the next morning with one too many marks to cover with concealer, exactly how he liked it. 

The perm mumbles something Hijikata doesn’t quite catch into the already bruising bite mark, the flesh sensitive beneath his lips as he kisses it once, twice― his thumb always giving extra attention to his leaking tip, fingers rough and calloused from lifting weights adding extra stimulation to it all. Even in something as simple as this, Gintoki finds a way to make his back arch and his toes curl, the positioning they were in making him feel on display, like a slab on meat in the store. It’s sinful, borderline shameless, but he definitely wouldn’t have it any other way.

It doesn’t take long for Hijikata to reach the edge with all the coaxing, warmth splattering up his chest to his collarbone, the perm’s face nestled in between his neck and shoulder. He feels the other moan into his skin as he comes, Gintoki working him through what would only be his first orgasm of the long night. 

-

“Gin-chan!” Kagura yells as she runs to catch up with them, the smacking of her flip flops against the tiled floor echoing through the hallway. 

“Pick up your shoes, Kagura-chan.” Otae gently reminds, calling over her shoulder. “It’s rude to drag your feet. Besides, people are trying to organize their things and get moved in, you wouldn’t want to distract them.” 

“Ah, Gin-san,” Shinpachi begins, adjusting the stuffed-full cardboard box in his grip before continuing, “speaking of which― do you know who you will be rooming with this year?” 

“No, I don’t. Coach told us we’d find out when we got there.” Gintoki sighs, eyes watching the numbers on the dorm’s doors as they rounded the corner, getting closer to where he was supposed to be spending his last year of college. “Not like it matters to me much who it is. I get along with everybody, ya know?” He states with a wink, Shinpachi rolling his eyes in reply, smile soft on the corners of his lips. 

“Will you still have time to coach us?” Kagura asks, a little skip in her step, almost busting it when her shoe comes flying off her foot from stepping on the back of it. She runs in place for a second like a cartoon character trying to get away, he thinks, only regaining balance when the box she had been carrying hits the ground with a loud thud.

“Be careful not to break my stuff and I’ll certainly consider it.” He snorts, stopping to make sure she was okay, letting her catch back up to the group before continuing to walk down the hall. She gives him a look that is a mix of puppy dog eyes and mischievousness, of course with a classic Kagura pout in her cheeks. “Just kidding. Of course I’ll find some time around both of your schedules.”

The room one-o-ten sits at the very end of the hallway, Gintoki fumbling to balance the box in his hand as he grabs at the key to unlock the door. In the back of his mind, he wonders whether or not his roommate had gotten here first and already picked out his bed. He really hoped not, he’d had the bed by the window for the last three years now and was getting pretty tired of being woken up in the mornings when the sun peaked _just right_ in through the bottom of the shitty blinds. 

Once unlocked, Gintoki pushes the door open with his foot, key shoved back into his hoodie’s pocket. Voices come through the closed door to the bedroom, low and unrecognizable from a distance. He knocks, the rest of his entourage behind him falling silent along with whoever was on the other side. 

Then, the door is opened, Tamegroro in-uniform with a smile upon his face as he exclaims, “Sakata-san!” 

A familiar voice sounds from the corner of the room shielded by the open door and Hijikata is over his brother’s shoulder in a heartbeat, the surprise in his brows so evident that Gintoki can’t help but laugh. 

“Hello, roomie.” He says with a grin, quite sure that he was the only one that noticed the small hint of red that rose and settled just above Hijikata’s cheekbones at his statement. _This was too perfect,_ he thought, _too perfect indeed._ Tamegoro moves aside and ushers him in, a smirk plastered across Gintoki’s lips as he sets his box down on the untaken bed. “Looks like we’ll be... _together_ this year. Who would have guessed?”

“Not me.” Hijikata responds with a snort, going back to his previous task of hanging up clothes in the closet. 

“This will be fun.” Gintoki exclaimed to no one in particular, practically beaming with excitement. 

And possibly the best part of it all? 

Hijikata had taken the bed by the window.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: fucking your teammates not advised. 
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!! 
> 
> Once more plugging my artist who deserves all the love and appreciation:  
> \- @gintoki_hole (twitter)  
> 


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